Try
by Jebediah Sprinklefield
Summary: After the loss of her master Mara tries to peice the shards of her broken identity back together. Oneshot. Wish the story were as good as the summary.


_All I know,_

_is everything is not as it seems._

_But the more I grow,_

_The less I know._

_And I have lived so many lives,_

_Though I'm not old._

_And the I more see,_

_The less I go._

_The fewer the seeds, _

_The more I sow._

_Then I see you standing there,_

_Wanting more from me,_

_And all I can do is try._

_Then I see you standing there,_

_Wanting more from me,_

_And all I can do is try._

_I wish I hadn't seen,_

_All of the realness._

_And ordinary people,_

_Are really not real at all._

_The more I learn,_

_The more I learn._

_The more I cry, _

_The more I cry._

_As I say goodbye to the way of life,_

_I thought I had designed, for me._

_Then I see you standing there,_

_Wanting more from me,_

_And all I can do is try._

_And the I see you standing there,_

_I'm all I'll ever be,_

_But all I can do is try._

_Try._

_All of the moments that already passed,_

_Try to go back and make them last._

_All of the things we want each other to be,_

_We never will be, we never will be._

_That's wonderful,_

_That's life..._

_**Nelly Furtado - Try**_

Mara crept through a Coruscant backalley. Skywalker was there. She could feel it.

The words echoed through her head. She knew he was dead, her emperor, her master, but that didn't make them any less real. That didn't make him any less terrifyingly powerful.

"Kill him! You must kill Luke Skywalker! Avenge my death!" Palpatine's voice echoed through her mind, increasing her need to bring her lord's murderer to justice.

_I will,_ she thought to herself, _I will kill Luke Skywalker._

And she would. He had slipped through her grasp one too many times, but this time, oh, this time would be different. This time Skywalker would die and her master would be avenged. This time she would finally get rid of that wretched, evil voice in her head.

It was time. Time for her plan to finally be completed.

Mara dropped down behind Luke, her violet lightsaber igniting as she slipped into his shadow.

"Glad you could make it," Luke whispered, his hand already on his green saber.

Mara almost started, but caught herself in time. _Damn._ He had known she was coming. Stupid Jedi and his bag of tricks, she didn't know how he did, but he did. He knew she was here and why she was here. _Oh well, that don't change a thing. You got a job to do and you're gonna do it._

She slashed at him. He twisted to parry the blow. She struck again. He refused to strike back. Again and again in a mindless routine and frenzy of glowing saberblades. To passersby it might seem like a beautifully choreographed dance, or a well practiced training session. But it wasn't. It was a life or death situation, where both parties were conserned.

She swung, he blocked Over and over. Neither tired, neither hesitated.

Strike, block, strike, block. The purple saber swung, the green saber halted it in it's path. Eventually the two were drawn into a saberlock, Mara keeping all her weight behind her swing, Luke applying a bit of pressure to his hilt, but mostly relying on his artificial right hand.

"Why are you doing this?" Luke asked curiously.

"Because I have to," Mara replied simply.

"But why do you have to?"

"Because it's kill or be killed."

"He can't hurt you, you know. He's dead."

Mara glared at him, the green and purple reflecting from her face, making her emerald eyes eerily beautiful. He could hear the voice swirling through her mind, compelling her to kill the enemy. It was starting to rain now, the water coming in thick drops.

"He can. Even if he can't kill me indirectly, he can. I would rather die now than listen to him for the rest of my life. Though even better than that would be to kill you now, and live the rest of my life in peace."

"You can silence him, banish him back to the darkness."

"What would you know?" Mara snapped, breakig the saberlock.

This time Luke finally attacked, bringing them into another saberlock.

"I'm real sorry to break up your party, but I have places to be. Until next time you try to kill me."

And with that Luke was gone, leaving Mara alone in the cold street, purple saber sizzling somewhat in the now pouring rain. She skulked quietly back to her ship and left Coruscant to plan for her next attack. Never had she failed so thoroughly.

Luke sighed at the tapcaf table as he sat down next to his twin.

"She tried to kill me again," he said casually.

"That girl?" Leia asked, "she was back?"

"Yeah, but I wouldn't call her a girl. She'd be about our age. And besides, if she heard you she'd probably be after your head next."

Leia leant back in her chair. Luke was trying to dodge the question and she knew it, he wasn't going to get away. "Well, what happened?"

Luke knew he wasn't going to skate around with his sister and gave in, "She cornered me in one of the lower levels of Coruscant. Almost got me too, but right before she attacked me she let down her sheilds for a split second when she heard The Emperor's voice again. I felt her, and acted as if I'd known she was coming all along. She wasn't too happy about that." Luke paused, Leia urged him to go on, "We got into a saber duel, we were at it for a while. I was starting to get a bit tired, not that I let on, she probably thought I could go on forever. Well, anyway, we got in a saberlock, and I said I had places to go and took off."

Leia nodded, but there was still something he wasn't telling her.

"So you just..took off, right?"

"Ok, so maybe I hobbled off," he raised his long trouserleg to reveal a deep saber burn across his shin, then raised his sleeve to show another burn down his arm. He grinned lopsidedly, "but she had no idea. She thought it was another wasted effort and didn't even try to follow me."

"I'm willing to bet the poor girl has a very damadged ego by now, the way you put it."

Luke's grin washed away like a lose rock on a flood plain, and suddenly he was serious again. "I really want to help her. I know I could if I tried, if she let me try."

Ah. So that was it. That was why Luke was so defensive about this mysterious assailant. He didn't just want her to stop trying to kill him. He wanted to help her.

Mara sighed. Was this ever going to end? _You will kill Luke Skywalker!_

Was the voice ever going to go away. Constant torment with no escape, even death had to be better than this. _But, _Mara thought, _even in death, would the voices remain?_

She had pondered this point to no end. And to no avail.

Now was the time to plan her next attack.

A crippled X-wing floated through space, its occupant deep in a Jedi hibernation trance.

Not that Mara Jade knew or cared about that small fact. To her, Luke Skywalker was dead. And the voice along with him. She sighed contentedly, her long red curls rustling as she flipped various switches on her Z-95 Headhunter's control panel, preparing to jump into hyperspace and leave the X-wing to it's fate, leaving it, and her past, behind her.

The mission had gone terribly wrong.

Mara had been on an intelligence mission for Karrde, but the bounty hunter she had been working with had turned on her. She couldn't put her finger on exactly when or how, but somewhere along the line something had happened to cause the fact that she was now hanging from the edge of a deep cliff on Dantooine, gripping on with only one hand as that stupid bounty hunter slime stood over her smirking.

She grasped desperately for her violet saber with her free hand, but as she struggled she saw it's small metallic form falling down the cliff-face into the darkness of the bottomless gorge below her.

Then it happened, instead of booted feet crushing her fingers to make her release her grip or a killing shot from that fully charged blaster, there was the flash of a green saberblade. In a split second the bounty hunter was gone, to be replaced by the face of Luke Skywalker, reaching over the edge to help her up.

She was startled for a second and almost let go. How had he survived? Was this just some hallucination? No, he was here, and no matter how he had survived he was about to help her do the same. She didn't know why she trusted him, but she figured she didn't have much choice anyway. She was, after all, dangling one handed from a cliff.

As she reached with her free hand, the rocks under her other hand began to crumble and give way. He saw she was about to fall. He could have left her. But he didn't, he grabbed her wrist just as the inertia of falling was about to take hold. And he pulled her to safety.

_Would she have done the same thing? No, it had been her last mission to make sure he was dead. Had the situation been reversed she would have left him to fall, smirking all the while. Or would she?_

Once they were a safe distance from the cliff, Luke decided to break the icy silence.

"I'm Luke Skywalker," he said, holding out his hand, "it's nice to meet you finally, without you trying to kill me."

Mara was still visibly shaken. She took his prefered hand and shook it politely, eyeing the cliff that had almost been her end warily.

"I'm Mara Jade," she didn't normally give out her real name, "I guess it's nice not to be trying to kill you for once."

"How old are you anyway?" Luke questioned. He wanted to know a bit more about the woman that had been intent on making his life a living hell.

"Seventeen, almost eighteen," she replied, her face glum.

"I see, I'm only eighteen myself. Almost nineteen."

"Really?" she asked, letting him lead her away from the cliff, though still eyeing it as though it were conspiring against her.

"Yup, really. I see you lost your saber back there." Luke said, pulling out the hilt of another saber and pressing it into her palm, a sign of peace. "Here"

Mara didn't know what to say, instead she just let him lead her along to where ever his destination might be.

After about another fifteen minutes of walking Luke had managed to lead Mara into a local tapcaf and bought her a warm drink.

He was greatful she had finally let down her sheilds enough to have a conversation with him, even if it was just because she had almost fallen off a cliff.

The small talk was actually nice. Mara had never had the time to enjoy such things before, she had always been too busy to bother with the pleasantries. She had seen a group of teens having fun running wild on the streets of Coruscant once on a mission to assasinate one of those annoying little crimelords that had decided to side with the rebels. She had wished that one day she would have fun like that too, though even at the time she knew it was an idle dream, but still...It was nice to hope.

Maybe she _would_ get to have an almost normal life sometime. It might be nice.

Who would have thought that the Emperor's death might actually be a relief to Mara, after adjusting to the slightly less sophisticated life.

And who would have thought that Luke's mysterious assailant would prove to be such a nice young lady?

Mara's thoughts flicked back to the present with the words, "You may kiss the bride!" and cheers erupting from both sides of the room. It was a small wedding, as they had planned, with Talon Karrde's information brokers on one side, and various New Republic people on the other.

It had been a very rocking start for the couple, after all, how many people can say, "We met when she was trying to kill me"?

But the shaky beginnings had proved to make a stable base for a solid, never ending love.

Luke leaned foreward and kissed Mara passionately. She fell into the kiss with delight. They were married now, the two beings of the force were one. Now, and for forever.

Luke and Mara Jade Skywalker forever.

A/N: This was just a little late-night musing I had. Well, actually, 'most all of my stories are various late-night musings. Simple one-shot fic with lots of random points of meeting between Luke and Mara. Strictly AU. I don't get paid, so just praise Mr Lucas for his wondeful films. Sorry if the end, heck, the whole thing, was a bit rushed, but it was 3am and my attention was starting to wane.

_I was bored,_

_It was late,_

_Can I make it any more obvious?_

_My mind wandered,_

_here's the result,_

_What more can I say?_

Lol, well, anyways. Until next time,

take care!

Rei Evans. xoxox


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